


Detonate

by dreamlittleyo



Series: Combustion [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual!Sherlock, Asexuality, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Sexual Content, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's too clever to have missed the signals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detonate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daunt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daunt/gifts).



> Epic gratitude to [oxoniensis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis) for not just Britpicking, but going above and beyond the call of duty. You are my hero, hon, thank you!

"I still think it was a mistake to come out here alone," John says.

The Norfolk Broads might feel like the back of beyond, but it _does_ have a police force. John's sure Lestrade would have arranged a lift for them if only Sherlock had been willing to ask. It would have saved them a tedious train journey and an expensive taxi ride.

John follows Sherlock outside, across a patch of weeds that might have been a path once, and into the reedy grass through the gate. The broken sails of the old windmill creak noisily behind them. The wind's picking up, and it'll be dark in an hour or two. John wants to be back in civilisation well before then.

The windmill was empty, undisturbed dust on the floor, but it could just as easily have been a trap. There are no other buildings in sight, and for all that Sherlock insisted no one would be here, John knows a perfect location for an ambush when he walks into one.

And out of one. The back of his neck tingles as they put the windmill behind them and aim their steps towards the lane across the overgrown field. Sherlock claims there's a good pub not more than a mile away, on the bank of one of the broads. John could murder a pint.

That's when the windmill explodes.

Heat and chaos fracture the air, and John moves with the speed of instinct. Not thinking, no time for thinking. He's down, the ground and something softer jolting beneath him. Sherlock is the something softer, and John curls over him, shields him with his body. Sherlock's hands fist tightly in the front of John's shirt, just as a second explosion shatters the world.

They're neither of them hurt, though John's ears refuse to stop ringing, and adrenaline drags sharply through his blood. He holds his breath, waiting on a third explosion that doesn't come.

He pushes himself up onto his elbows once he's sure the silence and stillness will last. A glance over his shoulder confirms that the windmill is gone. There's still flame, and smoke—a lot of smoke—but the rushes and scrub oak nearby don't seem to have caught fire. John returns his attention to where it really belongs.

Sherlock blinks up at him, untwisting his fingers from John's shirt and looking… not nearly as surprised as he should, actually.

"Please tell me you didn't know that was going to happen."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitches, and John shakes his head.

"No, never mind. Don't tell me anything. I don't want to know."

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asks, but he clearly already knows the answer is yes.

John opens his mouth to respond anyway. But instead of the coherent, reassuring answer he intends, it's laughter that comes rumbling out of his chest. The sound starts soft and grows quickly louder. He's giddy with relief, a sensation both overwhelming and familiar, and his shoulders shake. A smile breaks the surface of Sherlock's expression, lopsided and genuine, and the warmth of it squirms beneath John's skin and leaves him feeling lightheaded.

It leaves him feeling other things, too, and a moment later John's laughter dries in his throat. His expression freezes, smile crumbling away by degrees as he realizes he's hard. How did that happen without him noticing?

His legs are still tangled with Sherlock's, and John's face heats. Even if Sherlock has missed the obvious (and he hasn't, of course he hasn't, Sherlock never misses anything), he won't miss the other signs. The catch in John's breathing, the sudden flush, the damning silence and God only knows what else.

It barely takes a heartbeat for Sherlock's smile to vanish in favour of a different look.

Comprehension. Hell, Sherlock probably worked it out even before John caught up.

John is mortified, of course. Sherlock obviously comprehends that fact as well, his gaze quick and sharp and taking in everything. John swallows thickly. His face is burning, and the ringing in his ears could just as easily be a result of humiliated distress as a lingering effect of the explosion.

Sherlock's expression turns quizzical, and it's all John can do to keep meeting his eyes.

"Why are you embarrassed?" Sherlock asks. "It's a perfectly natural physiological response, given the circumstances. Besides, it's hardly as though this is the first time you've become sexually aroused in my presence."

Oh god. " _Not_ helping, Sherlock," John gasps. If it’s physically possible to die of chagrin, he might be about to accomplish the trick.

Sherlock never misses anything, but up until now he's at least let John maintain the fiction that his attraction had gone unnoticed. Now the pretence is gone, and the awkwardness of the situation is so intense John barely remembers how they got here.

Oh right. Explosion.

John pulls away belatedly. He moves to stand, because if he's going to be inappropriately turned-on right now, he can at least do it without pinning Sherlock to the ground beneath him, and Christ, John's brain can just shut up any time it likes.

But he doesn't succeed in his retreat. Sherlock intercepts him before he's done more than shift a knee in the grass. He grabs John's wrist and yanks (possibly harder than he intends to, though that seems unlikely), and John falls forward. He has to brace himself on his other arm, his palm pushing down the clump of reeds beside Sherlock's head, because Sherlock doesn't release the grip that jerked him forward in the first place.

John stares, startled and confused.

Sherlock's eyes narrow, and John has no idea what he's thinking. He doesn't pull away, though. The strength of Sherlock's hold on his wrist makes it perfectly clear that John is meant to stay right where he is. John inhales as slowly as he can, trying and failing to decipher what just happened.

Sherlock doesn't let go, but he does reach for John with his other hand. Long fingers brush the fabric of John's shirt, then Sherlock's warm palm presses flat against the material—against John's stomach beneath. John stares down at Sherlock (at the cryptic expression on that distracting face), and for several seconds he can't remember how to breathe or blink.

Then Sherlock's hand slips lower, and John rediscovers oxygen with a ragged gasp.

There are questions on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn't voice them. It might be shock holding them at bay, but more likely it's fear of breaking whatever bizarre spell has Sherlock touching him like this. Sherlock's eyes crinkle around the edges as his touch finds its way lower, teasing past the button of John's fly and then cupping him through the fabric of his trousers.

John curses aloud as his bracing arm spasms and gives out, and suddenly he's braced on his elbow instead of his palm, closer than he was an instant before. Close enough to breathe in the heat of Sherlock's skin, and to make it difficult (impossible) to maintain eye contact. Not that John would be capable of that anyway when Sherlock squeezes deliberately, or when he lets go and reaches for John's fly in earnest, clever fingers undoing the snap, the zip, then slipping inside.

" _Fuck_ ," John breathes, and when he inhales he smells burnt wood and the lingering tang of explosives. Rough grass brushes his face as he curls forward. Sherlock's hair tickles at his temple, and John's eyes pinch tightly shut, mouth dropping soundlessly open as Sherlock's hand curls around him, skin on skin, within the unforgiving confines of his pants.

There's no space for Sherlock's hands to manoeuvre, not with the way they're pressed together, but in this, as in almost everything else, Sherlock proves to be a tactical genius. Of course he manages despite the limitations, coaxing John towards a brink that leaves him gasping into Sherlock's shoulder. He has the surreal urge to bite down on the fabric of Sherlock's collar (poor substitute for the skin it covers, which is what John _really_ wants to taste), but he refrains.

Even coming apart as he is, John can tell Sherlock is calm and still beneath him. He has no idea what that means, and at the moment he's too overwhelmed to try and work it through.

" _Sherlock_ ," John gasps, when Sherlock does something particularly clever with his thumb. "Oh god, I can't—"

"All right," Sherlock murmurs, and though his voice is soothing, it only jerks John closer to the edge. "Go on, then. Go ahead." Which is ridiculous. John doesn't need _permission_ to orgasm, not when he's on the receiving end of the world's most unexpected (and brilliant, God, how is Sherlock so brilliant at this when he hasn't even bothered to work John free of his trousers?) handjob.

But it's the low purr of Sherlock's voice that finally ruins him, and John groans, a ragged sound that leaves him no dignity.

He comes with a stutter of his hips and a slick heat that's going to be bloody uncomfortable later.

He needs a moment to collect his breath after. Maybe more like five. He pushes himself upright as Sherlock's hand slips free—shifts into a kneeling position and watches the tiny furrow in Sherlock's brow as he glances down at the sticky mess of his fingers. _How inconvenient_ , that expression says, then clears as Sherlock wipes his hand clean on a thick tuft of grass.

"Um," John says, and then wishes he hadn't when the syllable draws the full and instant weight of Sherlock's attention. Pale eyes take in John's face like they're cataloguing every possible fragment of data, which is disconcerting enough even under normal circumstances. As exposed as he's feeling right now, John kind of wants to crawl under a rock and hide until Sherlock's focus finds some other target.

"Um," John says again, and then manages a more coherent, "Would you like me to…?"

"Unnecessary," Sherlock asserts. And damn him anyway, John is starting to suspect that's amusement he sees glinting behind Sherlock's eyes.

"But you didn't…" John flounders.

"No," Sherlock agrees amiably. The amusement has spread from his eyes to the corner of his mouth. "As I said. Unnecessary."

The implication leaves John's head spinning, but he probably shouldn't be surprised. Not really Sherlock's area. It still feels like a revelation, and a surreal one at that, having it laid out for him so carelessly after receiving one of the more satisfying wanks of his life.

John stares down at Sherlock for a full thirty seconds before he realizes he should probably move. It takes him a fumbling moment to close his fly, and finally he shifts back far enough to get his knees properly beneath him.

"We should call the police," he says, and rises unsteadily to his feet.

"Why?" Sherlock asks. He accepts the hand John offers to help him up, but his brow furrows in obvious consternation. "The immediate danger has clearly passed, and there's nothing they'll be able to glean from the debris that we won't discover more easily without them." He's upright now, but still holding onto John's hand. His fingers brush almost absently over the bare skin of John's wrist, and John is proud of himself for not being distracted from his argument.

"It's a crime scene," John points out. It's still smouldering, too. He doesn't have to glance over his shoulder to check. He can smell it.

Sherlock's expression clears as he considers that, and his eyebrows arch high as understanding belatedly hits him.

"Oh," Sherlock says. "Right. Procedure. How tedious."

John sighs and pulls out his phone, struggling to keep any fondness from leaking into the exasperated expression on his face.

"What would you do without me?" he mutters.

"Implode under the weight of my own brilliance, I expect." There's a smile in Sherlock's voice and in his eyes.

John shakes his head, and can't help smiling back.


End file.
